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The Energy Blog is where all topics relating to The Energy Revolution are presented. Increasingly, expensive oil, coal and global warming are causing an energy revolution by requiring fossil fuels to be supplemented by alternative energy sources and by requiring changes in lifestyle. Please contact me with your comments and questions. Further Information about me can be found HERE.

Statistics

November 15, 2007

Global Warming Sceptics Countered by IPCC and Scientists

The BBC has compiled a list of the top ten reasons "climate skeptics" dispute the evidence that human activities such as industrial emissions of greenhouse gases and deforestation are bringing potentially dangerous climate change as claimed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). Counter arguments made by some of scientists who agree with the IPCC are also presented in the BBC presentation. The comparison is much too long to duplicate here, but can be found at the BBC site.

My personal view is that we are undergoing global warming at a rate that cannot be explained by historic natural cycles. There is a compelling trend, shown on the referenced graph, that the average combined global land and marine surface temperature has been rising since 1860 and that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities are most likely the underlying cause of warming in the 20th century. The exact value of the temperature rise is not the most important factor in coming to this conclusion, it is the trend. As is stated inthis paperfrom which this graph was taken:Since the mid twentieth century the uncertainties in global and hemispheric mean temperatures are small, and the temperature increase greatly exceeds its uncertainty. In earlier periods the uncertainties are larger, but the temperature increase over the twentieth century is still significantly larger than its uncertainty.

Based on my conclusions, that global warming is real, and that greenhouse gases are the most important cause that we have any control over, I believe that all efforts to decrease carbon dioxide and methane emissions need to be taken, with more emphasis than we have been giving this effort. The length of this trend is also of some question to me, but the important thing is that it is happening and has been happening for over 100 years and there is no rational reason for it to stop. If for some reason these conclusions are wrong and there are some, in my opinion small uncertainties about global warming, we will have cost the world economies rather large amounts of money, but not in vain, because we have decreasing supplies of increasingly expensive fossil fuels and that the technologies that reduce global warming -- biofuels, better batteries, electric vehicles, and renewable energy -- also reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, an equally important problem. This dual concern is what caused me to create The Energy Blog.

Comments

Paul you are partially correct about water vapor, water is also present in the atmosphere in liquid and ice phase.

“Water vapor is a dependent variable, and as CO2 goes up the water vapor content of the atmosphere goes up too, providing a positive feedback.”

Really? Maybe you can explain your 'scientific illiteracy' in more detail.

While you are at it, please explain the fugacity of CO2 in seawater. Next I would be interested in what you thing the magnitude of climate change relative to the uncertainty in the model and our ability to measure the climate.

I am also interested in in the most recent series of glaciations for say 60 billion years.

While I am skeptical of simplistic computer models of complex natural system, this will lead some to call me a denialist about some sort of crisis. Making wild claims about the unknown future while not understand the past, makes one a scientist according to the BBC.

"While you are at it, please explain the fugacity of CO2 in seawater. Next I would be interested in what you thing the magnitude of climate change relative to the uncertainty in the model and our ability to measure the climate.

I am also interested in in the most recent series of glaciations for say 60 billion years."

“Water vapor is a dependent variable, and as CO2 goes up the water vapor content of the atmosphere goes up too, providing a positive feedback.”

Really? Maybe you can explain your 'scientific illiteracy' in more detail.

Yes, really. Of course there are uncertainties about how, over the long term (centuries), CO2 gets absorbed into the ocean. Right now, the uncertainty is about positive feedbacks, for example changes in ocean circulation causing more CO2-rich deep water (it's enriched because of the decay over the millenia of falling organic matter in the oceans, the 'biological carbon pump') to the surface, causing enhanced release of CO2.

But the water vapor content is determined by dynamics on a much shorter time scale, on the order of days or weeks in the troposphere. So if you run a climate simulation over (say) a year, you treat the CO2 level as independent, but the water vapor level as determined by the dynamics.

p.s. I tend to get my stats on the composition of the upper atmosphere from NASA which gets them from their satelites and high flying aircraft stationed at our navy base next door..hint, hint.

I thought that stat. on the miniscule amount of CO2 in the upper atmosphere was fairly standard knowledge, even among ground level people?

Aviation's contribution to global warming is rather well documented in UK, Switzerland, and Russia; and found its way into policy changes, ZURICH airports flight restrictions for example, or the EU tax on aircraft engine emissions, or Virgin Air's competition for a 'clean engine' or British Aviation's new series of low emission engines.

Gotta love it when a hypocrite (or "dishonest weasel", which fits too) proves just HOW much they are projecting.

I have shown that Bush is supporting IGCC as a choice to make electricity.

Yet you have refused to list or even count the construction starts and plans made. Meanwhile, TXU alone planned 11 (eleven!) new PCC plants in Texas before it was bought out. 3 of those plants are still going forward. Yeah, that's some triumph for clean coal and preparation for carbon-free generation.

4.Wind - Bush supports

You mean, like those workers at NREL who had been laid off due to Bush's RE budget cuts until he needed them as window dressing for a speech, so they were quickly re-hired?

“Primary drivers of the decision announced today include continued uncertainty related to carbon dioxide (CO2) regulations....”

Precisely. Bush talks about GW, the environment, and even "addiction to oil", but he won't even propose anything like a regulatory regime for carbon emissions which would give the utilities some certainty.

Clearly the better environment choice (including AGW) in Florida is nuclear over coal even with CCS.

I just wanted to quote that so that I could say I have to agree with it. However, nuclear has political opposition that coal does not, and coal has friends in places like W. Virginia. We're likely to be stuck with coal for the same reasons we're stuck with corn ethanol, so we might as well make it do as little damage as possible.

E-P does not understand complex issues therefore he hurls mud. If E-P does not understand how composting is an excellent low cost renewable energy project, I will be happy to educate him. He only needs to ask.

E-P also does know that NREL does not build windmills. The renewable energy industry has an annual national conference. What low level DOE figure he send? He went himself and gave a great speech. The renewable energy industry wants to build projects to producing energy and are getting the support that is needed..

E-P wants “regulatory regime for carbon emissions which would give the utilities some certainty.” Utilities have no problem passing on taxes to its customer base. Again this is a marginal solution that we do not need. If we are building low carbon energy sources as fast as we can which will also reduce energy cost by reducing the demand for oil and natural gas, how is making energy more expensive going to reduce ghg?

E.P. should visit Wiscasset Maine; home to a closed Nuke--MAINE YANKEE; and a proposed 'state of the art, including deep earth carbon sequestration' coal gasification plant.

We are living out the Nukes vs. Coal dilemma...and despite a full tilt campaign against the coal plant by Sierra and every other major environmental org. in Maine with assist from Nationals; the various zoning measurew which would have allowed the plant to proceed failed by a 'winnable' margin.

Is it almost a no-brainer in Maine to not vote for the coal plant, esp. a huge one that was proposed; but there emerged substantial support for the enterprise.

No Nukes; NO LNG; No Coal; wind-depends how much Canada will charge us for the power made in our mountains and shipped back across the border; solar---in Maine, you're kidding; bio-mass--no boilers!; hydro--no dams, take them down, salmon and elvers are sacred; Tidal--see dams; hydrogen--great, until the first one blows up; other--will it pass DEP and local scrutiny??

Somethings got go give; people are fed up with endless environmental extremism and opposition to every potential energy source!

Photosynthesis produces glucose, which the plant may turn into various other organic compounds.

Now, what do you think happens to that glucose/etc. when the plant is (as I said) allowed to decay or is destroyed? It sooner or later is oxidized back to CO2. Or do you think there are big piles of glucose accumulating in the environment somewhere?

Maine has lots of trees, and I assume they can build boilers, or rather, biomass-fired power plants. Are you saying the environmental organizations are anti-boilers? If so, why would they be anti-boilers?

Do bears defecate in the woods? Big city lawyers are very good at finding local useful idiots to oppose any energy project. It is not about the environment, it about billing rate. I would be a lot less skeptical about AGW alarmist if they lived a modest life style and spent more time supporting solutions.

If someone can find a wood biomass project on the west coast that has not argued in the 9th circus over some bogus environmental issue. For the record, wood is the second largest source of renewable energy after large hydro.